


Salome

by etal



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: AU, M/M, sort of Bible AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 03:28:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17635163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etal/pseuds/etal
Summary: Timothée Salomé





	Salome

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thereusedtobeadarkness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thereusedtobeadarkness/gifts).



> A tumblr short, inspired by a bad pun about Timothée Salomé with thereusedtobeadarkness, and the unsettling likeness of this painting of Salome with the head of John the Baptist http://www.victorianweb.org/decadence/painting/ld/ld1.html

These days, when Timothée danced, the whole Court came to watch. They’d known him since he was a child hovering on the fringes of the entertainments, his mother whispering in his ear, nudging him towards the heated centre of their attention. Back then he was modest and quiet; he kept his eyes lowered and his fingers latticed in his lap, ignoring the jocular compliments laced with threat, the muttered insinuations that followed his steps as he padded on bare feet over the inlaid marble of the palace’s polished floors and through its dark rooms.

He resisted them all, even when he was old enough for the offers to become more pressing. He wanted only two things, love and freedom, and, for the space of one secret summer, he had tasted the sweetness of both.

But that time was over and now he knew better than his mother how to play the game. He had watched the other beautiful young people come and go through the years, how they paraded and preened, leaving nothing to the imagination in the race for notoriety and easy riches. That wasn’t going to happen to him. Any fool could sell themselves for money and gewgaws. He wanted something that would last beyond a hectic night of approval. Something that would ensure his name was remembered forever.

When they called for him to dance at the King’s birthday feast, he was ready. He had planned each detail, practiced so that the hard-won skill would seem natural and instinctive. His eyes were ringed with kohl, his hair lightly oiled so that it would shine but still move as he dipped and turned. No-one else in the court had hair like his. He hung silver chains around his neck and around his wrists and ankles and weighted his hands with rings. He knew they would expect him to appear barely clothed, so he covered himself in sheer layers, cocooning his body in gauzy obscurity. He would remove each one as he danced, pretending to be helplessly propelled by the court’s desire to see more of him, allowing his audience to dwell in the fantasy of what it would be like to possess him and undress him. He knew how to move his body in a way that meant women could imagine what it would be like to have him between their legs, the touch of his light fingers drifting on their thighs and his mouth warm and wet at their cunts, and then to shift again and twist so that the men could imagine how his body would feel under their hands, how they could hold him down and spread his legs and have him open to them; he could arch and sway so that their fists would clench as if gripping his wrists to keep him still; undulate so they could dream the phantom feeling of sinking their cocks into his supple centre. How easily he would yield, how docile and soft he would be if only they could have him… if only they could be the one to… but just as they reached for him he would slip away from their touch, until the seventh veil fell and he stood before the King in the torchlit circle as the music ended and the court held its breath.

“Anything… anything, you want…” the King gasped, shaking, halfway risen from his throne on its dais. “Whatever you ask for is yours, half my kingdom if you wish it.”

The moment had come and Timothée did not hesitate. He knew what commonplace trash the court thought he would desire, he knew his mother had directed him to use such an opportunity to secure power and property, but he was owed a debt greater than anything that could be paid off with a handful of coins.

He tilted his chin and met the King’s eyes directly.

“I want the head of Armie Hammer brought to me on a platter. Here, now.”

Behind him came the silent sound of the Court straining every muscle not to react. The King seemed also to be frozen and then he tried to laugh.  
“Ha! You’re joking of course!” He traced a line in the air, descriptive of an admiring caress. “No-one possessed of such gentle and seductive arts could want something so… so terrible.”

“I do.”

“But.. but…” the King was floundering, red-faced. He could not break an oath, made in front of his guests, on his own birthday. “Surely there is something more suited to your youth and your beauty, something a little less… bloodthirsty. Jewels perhaps? Or a house by the sea? A vineyard or two?”

Timothée shook back his curls. “His head. On a plate.”

In vain, the King offered money and treasures: all were refused. Though Hammer was no longer as great a favourite in the Court as he had once been and was kept distant from the inner circle, he remained a loyal member of the household. But the promise had been made and the debt must be paid.

Grieving, the King made the order. Timothée waited in his circle of light, perfectly steady, with the colour on his cheeks only slightly heightened.

It didn’t take long. The King’s Guard returned, bearing a large gold plate. At its centre, in a sticky pool of dark blood, was the head of Armie Hammer. The Guard laid the platter on the dais, at the King’s feet.

The King rose from his throne, saying, “In the defeat of my better self, here is your prize. I wish you joy of it.” He stumbled from the Hall and the Court, still in muted shock, followed after, casting glances back at the still figure and his terrible reward.

When he was alone, Timothée slipped to his knees to gaze at the head on the plate. He bent his head to press his lips once, twice, to the bloody mouth and whispered, “You once promised to love me for all your life and I was a fool who believed you. And then you sent me away because you said love couldn’t survive in this place. So now I have danced you to death and closed your mouth forever.”

That was the end of dancing at Court.


End file.
